


Drunk

by kingsman_recruits



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Gen, Harry Hart is still dead, I'm Sorry, Language, Post V-Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 04:09:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4420772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingsman_recruits/pseuds/kingsman_recruits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin has a hard time coping with the events of V-Day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drunk

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off a one word Tumblr prompt. If you're interested in sending in some prompts or checking out the other stuff I've been working on, you can find me at kingsman-recruits.tumblr.com!

            Merlin was a firm believer in adding a shot or two of Bailey’s to his morning coffee, and he wouldn’t refuse a rum and coke when offered one between friends, and a shot or two of scotch was the only way he was going to get through family Christmases. But in their line of work, Merlin also couldn’t afford for his actions to be compromised, as he could be called in at any given moment. So, he never got drunk, and he had been perfectly fine with that. But today was different. Today, he needed to be intoxicated if he was ever going to make it. So, there he was, slumped up against one of his filing cabinets, in command no less, nursing a bottle of vodka he knew Arthur had stashed for rough days. _But the bastard’s gone now,_ he thought, not quite sure how he should feel about the murder of his boss. After all, it was Arthur who led them down this road. It was Arthur who had compromised the agency. It was Arthur who was willing to sacrifice Harry to get the agents off of Valentine’s back. _And now Harry was gone._

            “Stop it, Merlin,” he whispered to himself, taking another swig from the bottle. The clear liquid burned his throat, but numbed his senses in a way that up until today, he couldn’t stand, so he continued. And continued. And continued, willing the events of the last 24 hours to be burned away by the alcohol, as sheer force of will wasn’t cutting it.

            All in all, the last 24 hours could have been a lot worse. Eggsy could have been accepted immediately into Kingsman, so he might have never found the scar on Arthur’s neck. If the scar hadn’t been found then Roxy would be dead, Eggsy would be dead, and Harry would still probably be dead. _And you, Merlin, you’d be dead._ And the world would be in an even shitter situation that the current one. A lot more could have gone wrong. But Merlin couldn’t get his mind off of the fact that the situation could have been a lot better. For starters, _fuckin’ Arthur_ could have not betrayed them all. He could have not sent Harry to that stupid church, and they could have figured out a plan of attack that would have been easier to execute with more trained agents. _But it wasint better and it wasint_ _worse, is wha’ it is._

            Extending his arm up to his mouth, he realized that his once half-full bottle was now completely empty, but the images of Harry’s feed were still racing through his head, and he could still see how Arthur had greeted him that morning, and it was all too much. Setting out to find more relief was much harder than he had anticipated though, as his legs shook with each attempted step and his eyes felt like they were marbles: glassy, heavy, and constantly wavering. Somehow managing to make it across the room to where their very own tube carriage waited, he climbed inside and collapsed into one of the plush seats thankfully before the tube took off.

            The journey to the shop was simply awful, because there was no alcohol in the tube – _We ‘ave spirits in all oov the cars and planes but we don’t ‘ave ‘em in ‘ere? Fuckin’ Arthur –_ and because the shop reminded him of Harry. When Harry didn’t want to be at home and he didn’t want to necessarily work either, he liked to pretend that his fake job was well... not fake. He’d help make sure that the suits were properly displayed, and he talk to the customers as they arrived, offering compliments like there was no tomorrow, ensuring that they ended up buying something from the tailors. So needless to say, as soon as Merlin exited the lift and found himself in a fitting room, he nearly threw himself out of the building, wanting to vomit just imagining Harry sitting in his usual seat in front of the show window.

            Stepping out into the cooling night air, he realized that he should have thought this a bit more through. The streets were filled with debris and there were ambulances carting off bodies to a location he didn’t know. There were parents looking for children and lovers looking for their lost halves. Merlin suddenly felt like he didn’t belong out there as he wasn’t looking for anyone. He knew the exact location of the person he wanted to see the most, but even in his drunken stupor, he know that catching the next flight to Kentucky wasn’t a good idea.

            Instead, he stumbled down the cobbled streets for what had seemed like an eternity, trying hard not to make eye contact with anyone for fear that they might see how lost he was feeling too. As he found his way into a pub that was somehow still standing and still serving (although he was the only customer), he knew that he needed to stop drinking. Tomorrow, he’d have to be back at work and he’d have to help put the world back together, and in order to do all of that, he would need to have some control over himself. But as the words tumbled out of his mouth, he heard his voice mumble “gin martini,” instead of “glass of water,” and there was no point in trying to get the bartender to change the drink since he immediately launched into making it. _It’d be rude ta change now._ And so he sat there, in a dark and empty pub, wishing that the world would put itself back together without him.

            Merlin was so lost in his thoughts about how much he wished that he was past the point of thinking coherently that he didn’t notice the door open. He didn’t notice how the two at the door exchanged glances and then proceeded to order their own drinks. He didn’t notice how they kept throwing looks over their shoulders to make sure that he was still there. He didn’t even notice right away when the bodies slid into his booth and sat opposite of him.

            “How’dya find me?” He slurred, eyes shifting in and out of focus on the pair of agents across from him.

            “You put a GPS tracker in the glasses, remember?” Roxy responded, concern evident in her tone. “After checking in on my family, I went back to command to see if you needed any help, but you weren’t there and Eggsy had beaten me to checking in on you.” Merlin looked towards Eggsy then, face covered in bruises, not smiles – looking just as lost as he had felt.

            “Your families okay?” Merlin directed to the both of them. They each shook their heads up once. “You two okay?” Roxy and Eggsy looked between each other briefly, but the one second their eyes had met, Merlin could tell that a million words had been silently exchanged, but they decided to only let one out.

            “No.” Merlin nodded his head then.

            “Me either.” He held his martini up to them, and they wordlessly brought up their own. They toasted that night, to what, they never said, but they were all thinking of Harry, and of how they were going to fix the mess they had been thrown into.


End file.
